Lord Davies of Oldham: I am assuming that the noble Lord refers to Government's plans to implement a sanctions scheme for the misuse of airport slots at congested airports, as required by European Regulation 793/2004.
	In line with the Cabinet Office code of practice on written consultations, the Government have carried out a 12-week consultation exercise with relevant parties on this issue. The consultation closed on 7 October 2005, and the department intends to publish a summary of responses, within which it will indicate how it plans to take forward this matter.
	By introducing the sanctions scheme, Government aim to ensure the best use of existing airport capacity, and to minimise levels of congestion and delays affecting airlines and passengers.

Lord Adonis: Many officials from the department have at various times made visits to prisons in the course of their duties. However, records of these visits are not kept centrally.
	Staff at all levels in the department's Offenders' Learning and Skills Unit regularly visit prisons particularly regularly as part of their work and have organised visits for senior officials and Ministers. Again, we do not keep formal records of such visits.
	From April 2001 to April 2004 the department employed regional offender learning and skills advisers who worked directly with establishments and visited them regularly as part of their work. Since 2004 these advisers have been employed directly by the Learning and Skills Council.

Lord Davies of Oldham: The Secretary of State for Transport wrote to the Minister for Transport in the Irish Republic as recently as 23 November this year, seeking his assistance over the poor maintenance condition and overloading of Irish lorries and the about breaches of drivers' hours rules.

Lord Laird: asked Her Majesty's Government:
	How many people in South Armagh have brought more than two actions for compensation for alleged damage against the Ministry of Defence in each of the last five years.

Lord Adonis: No information is available about the number of pupils from overseas attending primary and secondary schools in England. Figures are available for learners in further education (FE) disaggregated by the "country of domicile" and are published on the Learning and Skills Council (LSC) website at www.lsc.gov.uk/National/Partners/Data/Statistics/LearnerStatistics/LearnerNumbers/Learner+Number+Analyses.htm.
	It is not possible to identify the subset of learners who intend to study for more than one year from the data source (the FE individual learner record).The following table summarises results, defining overseas as a country of domicile other than England.
	
		
			 Academic Year Number 
			 2002/03 87,200 
			 2003/04 87,000 
			 2004/05 86,200 
		
	
	Separately, the International Passenger Survey (IPS) for the financial year 2003/04 estimates that 131,000 1 migrants entered the United Kingdom (UK) and planned to stay for more than one year for the purposes of study.

Lord Warner: The data used is the most recent available.
	Smoking Kills set three targets to reduce smoking prevalence in England. These are set out as follows, along with current progress.
	Target 1: to reduce smoking among children from 13 per cent, to 9 per cent, or less by the year 2010; with a fall to 11 per cent, by the year 2005.
	The publication Smoking, drinking and drug use among young people in England in 2004 (Health and Social Care Information Centre) reports that the prevalence of 11 to 15 year-old smokers was 9 per cent. in 2004.
	Target 2: to reduce adult smoking in all social classes so that the overall rate falls from 28 per cent. to 24 per cent, or less by the year 2010; with a fall to 26 per cent, by the year 2005.
	The 2003 General Household Survey (Office for National Statistics) reported that the overall smoking prevalence of all persons in England in 2003 was 25 per cent.
	Target 3: to reduce the percentage of women who smoke during pregnancy from 23 per cent. to 15 per cent, by the year 2010; with a fall to 18 per cent, by the year 2005.
	The report, Infant Feeding 2000, (Department of Health) shows that in England in 2000, 19 per cent. of women smoked throughout their pregnancy.
	Notes: For target 2, all adult smoking, 2003 results are weighted whereas the target in "Smoking Kills" was based on unweighted data. Weighting to compensate for under-reporting was introduced in the 2000 General Household Survey. In order to gauge the effects of weighting the data, estimates for smoking prevalence were re-estimated weighting the 1998 datasets, which led to a slight increase in the overall smoking prevalence of around one percentage point.

Lord Goldsmith: The prosecution of Denis Donaldson, Ciaran Kearney and William Mackessy was neither initiated nor withdrawn by the Government. In Northern Ireland prosecutions are initiated or continued by the Director of Public Prosecutions where he is satisfied that the evidence which can be presented in court, is sufficient to provide a reasonable prospect of conviction and it is in the public interest to prosecute. Prosecution decisions are kept under continuous review.
	These were serious charges and the prosecution was properly vigorous in pursuing the interests of justice. All proper steps were taken during the course of the criminal process to bring this matter to trial.
	But a prosecution may only continue if the test for prosecution remains met. The director gave very careful consideration to facts and information provided by the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
	The duty to weigh the public interest is placed on the prosecutor. It is not an easy consideration and the prosecutor may be required to balance competing interests in reaching a decision. Having weighed only those factors it was proper for him to consider and having regard to his duties under the Human Rights Act, the director concluded that the test for prosecution in respect of the three accused was no longer met as the prosecution was no longer in the public interest.
	It is not open to the director, or me, to make the reasoning for this decision public. To do so would be liable to give rise to the very damage the decision to stop the prosecution was taken to avoid.
	The director kept the law officers fully informed from the commencement of this case. At all times, the director took proper decisions about this prosecution. Political considerations did not form any part of, or in any way affect, the decision that continuing the prosecution was no longer in the public interest. There were no discussions with Sinn Fein.

Lord McKenzie of Luton: On Second World War debt due to the United States Government, I refer the noble Lord to the Answer's given to him by Lord McIntosh of Haringey on 27 May 2002 (col. WA 127), January 2003 (col. WA 73), 11 July 2003 (col. WA 66) and 19 January 2005 (col. WA 111).